Announcing “2025: A Year Of…”
Thank you all for your patience!
I started receiving questions about 2025’s theme in January of 2024. Ha! It didn’t take long for some of you to start looking ahead!
If you’ve been following me and my crochet designs for awhile you may already be familiar with all this but I’d like to drop a little bit of history and explain this series first.
Ashlee Brotzell Designs What?
Hi! I’m Ashlee. I design crochet patterns!
My 350+ crochet patterns all use colorwork. I always offer my designs for two colorwork techniques: interlocking crochet and overlay mosaic crochet.
The Process
The simplified version of my process is that I draw something on a grid, make sure it follows the rules for both interlocking crochet AND overlay mosaic crochet, and then I turn it into a written crochet pattern for both techniques.
I crochet as much as I can but I rely heavily on my team of testers to show my art in the best light possible. I haven’t 100% confirmed my team for 2025’s “Year of…” series yet but I do make sure to thank my testers publicly every time I publish a new pattern.
I’ve created tutorials and a few pattern walk-thrus but I haven’t explored much outside of the ‘basic’ techniques. I don’t do slanted stitches or fancy color changes (outside of the colorwork involved in the original techniques).
History of Yearly Themes
I started designing in 2020. I drew designs for small squares, large squares, scarves, and blankets.
In February 2021, I thought it might be cool to publish a themed square each month. I picked gnomes that year because they were super popular and I kept seeing them everywhere. I retroactively published a large square for January 2021 and then did a gnome each month.
I hadn’t originally thought this would be something I’d have to keep doing forever. But there were so many requests for more that I came up with a new theme for 2022 and we had 12 cat squares that year.
Now that we’ve done Celtic knots and dogs, it definitely feels like my “Year of…” series is a permanent Ashlee Brotzell Designs thing.
What’s Special About These “Year Of…” Sets?
Why do people seem to like these designs?
Well, besides being totally awesome patterns (if I do say so myself), a lot of people seem to love that you can pay at the beginning of the year and then get a surprise new pattern each month!
The size is good because it’s not so large that you’re trying to lug a blanket around as you crochet on-the-go, but it’s not so small that there’s a ton of pieces to go missing.
The theme lasts all year but each month’s design is different.
The eBook is the best value, because you get all 12 monthly designs (for both techniques) for 40% less than buying each square individually. Sometimes there are some extra bonuses that are only available in the eBook too!
Ok, So What’s 2025’s Theme?
I have been extremely nervous to announce 2025’s theme for a few reasons:
- Life has been challenging and I was nervous I wasn’t up to the job for another year of monthly squares
- I felt behind all year on the tasks I wanted to get done
- My family has moved recently and it’s been harder on us than I expected
- It’s hard to create when you’re stressed
- The topic I wanted to do feels really challenging in the technical-art-side of things
- The topic I wanted to do might be overdone? It’s everywhere!
The drafts I made when I was trying to decide on 2024‘s theme are still sitting in my folder, but once again I’m not feeling that theme.
I’m running out of time but I decided to just try a few drawings and see if this year’s theme would work.
I’m really happy with how these drafts are turning out so I’m ready to announce that YES! THERE WILL BE A “YEAR OF…” FOR 2025!
Announcing…
I hope people will like this… I hope I haven’t dragged it out too long…
2025: A Year of Dragons
Other than crochet, my big passion is reading. And my favorite genre is sci-fi and fantasy.
There are SO MANY dragons in these books. And lots of them have been turned into movies. And then people write more books. It’s just so awesome!
I want to show a few dragon poses, a few dragon styles, and just have fun with my art this year.
Disclaimer on the dragon in this image!
I may still change this one a bit before it gets to publishing. And this one is NOT planned as January’s dragon square, so I hope you’ll like the surprise!
Amazing! Where Can I Get The Pattern?
At the time of writing this, none of the dragon squares have been published yet.
Throughout 2025 I will publish a new dragon square at the beginning of each month.
The patterns will be published to my Webstore, Ravelry, and Etsy individually AND added to the eBook as they become available.
If you purchase the eBook you will receive whatever dragons have been published at that point and then you will get updates monthly with the rest of the dragons. This option also saves you 40% versus buying each square individually.
PRE-SALE DISCOUNT
You’ll save an additional 25% on the eBook during Pre-Sale!
Offer ends Jan 1, 2025, no code needed.
Pre-Sale!
You can pre-purchase the eBook now (a one-time payment for a year of dragon patterns!). If you are joining us later in the year you’ll receive whatever has already been published and then join the monthly updates for the rest of the year.
Yardage Details
Here’s some helpful information to help you plan this year’s yarn usage. I do recommend you use a really dark color as the Main Color to make sure the shadows and eyes look the way they’re meant to but you’re welcome to get as creative as you’d like for your project!
Each design comes with the fully written pattern and charts for two colorwork techniques: interlocking crochet and overlay mosaic crochet.
Click here to go to my tutorials for these crochet techniques.
Important Notes
- if you choose to use the interlocking crochet technique you can easily plan your yarn usage because it is the same for every square
- if you prefer the overlay mosaic crochet technique we will be guessing at yardage a bit
These colorwork techniques can produce similar finished squares but their methods are different.
Two layers of mesh uses the same amount of yarn no matter how many stitches are shown at the front versus hidden behind the other layer – so we can calculate how much yarn we need for the full year of 12 squares quite easily.
With mosaic crochet, you’ll use up more of the dark yarn on designs that have more ‘drawing’ on them. You can look at my other large squares to see how varied the yardage amounts can be depending on what the design looks like.
Since I have not yet drawn all of the squares we can’t calculate exactly how much of each color we will need. I am hoping to finish drawing them all early (and not leave it to be drawn the month before it needs to be tested each month). I will publish the yaradage amounts as I finish drawing each square so that you have more time to get the yarn you need.
Interlocking Crochet
Each dragon square has a chart size of 81 x 81. This means they begin with 40 windows in the foundation row and will finish to about 20″ / 51 cm square.
Interlocking crochet / LFM crochet file includes:
- line-by-line written pattern (view key)
- instructions on reading a chart (view)
- a one-page chart (good for viewing on a screen
- a four-page chart (better for printing)
Interlocking Crochet Details
- Chart is 81 x 81
- Gauge: 8 (dc, ch) x 8 rows = 4”
- 20″ x 20″ / 51cm x 51cm
- 4.5 mm hook (US7)
- Worsted weight yarn (490 – 565 yards total)
- Main color (MC) (dragon) – 250 yards plus 75 for optional border
- Accent color (AC) (background) – 240 yards
Full Year’s Yardage
If you use the interlocking crochet method and you want to make all 12 dragon squares you’ll need about 3000 yards of your Main Color / MC / first color used / dark color to crochet each square. My yardage estimate is slightly on the high side because I’d rather you not run out of yarn.
Please note, if you know your tension and gauge are drastically different than mine, then you’ll need to calculate your own yardage amounts!
I, personally, do not add the optional single crochet border to each square if I know the plan is to join them together as a blanket. Instead I add a single crochet border around the full blanket when I’m finished joining. I use about 200 yards for the joining and border process.
I use a slip stitch braid to join my squares – if you use a different method you may require more yarn!
- MC (dark color) x 12 squares = 3,000 yards plus 200-900 for joining and borders depending on which technique you use
- AC (background) x 12 squares = 2,880 yards
Overlay Mosaic Crochet
The mosaic crochet version of each dragon square uses an adjusted chart. This means I’ve removed the interlocking mesh dots and unneccessary border lines. Read more about the differences at https://ashleeslint.com/tutorials/interlocking-and-mosaic-crochet/.
Click here to learn more about the options for dealing with the cut ends at the end of each row when doing overlay mosaic crochet.
Overlay Mosaic Crochet file includes:
- line-by-line written pattern (view key)
- instructions for optional envelope border (view)
- instructions on reading a chart (view)
- a one-page chart marked with X’s (good for viewing on a screen)
- a four-page chart marked with X’s (better for printing)
Mosaic Crochet Details
- Chart is 77 x 77
- Gauge: 14 sc blo stitches x 15 rows = 4”
- 22″ x 20″ / 56cm x 52cm
- 5 mm hook (H-8)
- Worsted weight yarn (535 – 785 yards)
- Main color (dragon) – 225 – 275 yards
- Contrasting color (background) – 300 – 375 yards
- Optional envelope border – 250 yards
Full Year’s Yardage
As stated above, we are guessing at the full year’s need because we don’t know exactly what each square is going to look like. Single crochets do not use as much yarn as the dropped double crochets so the design does impact how much yarn is used.
Also note, if you know your tension and gauge are drastically different than mine you’ll need to calculate your own yardage amounts!
I, personally, do not add the optional envelope border to each square if I know the plan is to join them together as a blanket. I wait until all the squares are done and then make long strips to sandwich between the joins and cover everything.
Yardage for the full year, based on last year’s dog squares
- MC (dark color) x 12 squares = 3,000 yards
- CC (background) x 12 squares = 4,150 yards
- Optional envelope border added to each square = 3,000 yards
- OR Alternate joining method with strips between squares instead of envelope border around each square = 2,250 yards
Are you crocheting one of my designs? I’d love to see it. Tag me on social media or join one of my groups!
The first Facebook icon takes you to my public page, the second Facebook icon goes to my private group.
Monthly Squares
Each month’s design can be purchased individually and used as a pillow, wall hanging, panel in a bag, mix-and-match with other squares for a custom blanket, etc.
Your creativity can shine!
If you know you’ll want all 12 designs you’re best bet is to grab the eBook because you’ll save 40%!
January Dragon
February Dragon
March Dragon
April Dragon
May Dragon
June Dragon
July Dragon
August Dragon
September Dragon
October Dragon
November Dragon
December Dragon